My views on the impact of social media are all over the place. To me, there are some positive and negative impacts associated with the rise in our use of social media. While viewing the Common Craft tutorials I came to the conclusion that there is a huge lack of control over the content generated via social media. Wiki’s and blogs are giving a voice to so many who didn’t have one before, but I still find them scary. Wikipedia is one good example of the negative aspect of wiki’s.
If I use Wikipedia to conduct a search, I can find information on almost anything, but there is no guarantee this information will be accurate. Since wiki’s allow us to collaborate on written material, any user can make changes to the information. What assurance do I have that what I am reading is factual?
Blogs provide another example of information that can't be controlled. Anybody can start a blog on any topic that they want to discuss. As consumers of the internet we have a right to go onto the blog and participate and follow the discussion (if the blog is open to public viewing). Blogs provide a medium to truthfully discuss controversial topics. They also give us a chance to anonymously express ourselves (if we choose) without fear of retaliation. We don’t often have this same power of expression on our jobs, or even in some academic settings. Yet to me, blogging has a down side that can’t be ignored.
For one, the information contained on blogs doesn't have to be factually accurate. People can say whatever they want, and it will forever be present in cyberspace. We can deliberately say negative things about groups of people, organizations, or the government and we don’t have to back it up with any facts. We would like to believe that everyone engages in critical thinking, but not everyone does. So how do we control all of this disseminated information online?
We can’t control it. That is the catch 22 of social media. It’s so wide ranging and vast, that at the present time there is no way to control it. This week’s activities left me with more questions than actual answers about the use of social media. Are we going to one day eradicate human to human interaction? From a psychological stand point is this a good thing? Are we becoming desensitized to each other as a result of the rise of social media? What is it going to mean to be human in the future?
As I watched Clay Shirky’s presentation titled “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations” I immediately found myself torn on his ideas and concepts. I used to work for a SaaS company that sells subscriptions to it's project management collaboration software. The software was designed to help companies make “physical offices” a thing of the past. While I have fantasized like so many others about never having to step into an office to work again, I wonder if this is really the future of work in our society. Is this lack of face to face interaction better for us? Will the use of social/collaboration mediums for the workplace make us work more efficiently? I don’t have the answers to this today, but as a Media Psychologist I think I’m going to have a lot of fun exploring these questions.
There is no doubt in my mind that social media is here to stay. It’s already intertwined in our everyday lives. I personally don’t have a problem using it to socialize, or to collaborate on group projects. What I do have an issue with is the notion of social media and collaboration tools permantely replacing face to face interaction.
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